Lynchburg firefighter suffers medical emergency, community raises more than $23,000

‘He’s not a coworker. He’s not a friend. He’s my brother and I love him.’

LYNCHBURG, Va. – A Lynchburg firefighter who’s devoted his life to helping the community, now needs the community’s help.

Charlie Shealy and Jeremy Pillow go way back. The two started their careers at the Lynchburg Fire Department in 2007.

“We were both finding our passion, just at different points in our life. I was 22 years old. He was already in his 30s, but yet we struck up a friendship right off the bat,” said Shealy, the department’s battalion chief.

Fast-forward 16 years and they’re like brothers.

This week started out like any other at the department. On Tuesday, Shealy gave Pillow a hug goodbye and left the station. Forty-five minutes later, everything changed.

“I get the phone call that he’s sick enough to need to go home for the shift,” said Shealy. “Then I got a repeat phone call that not is he just sick, something is significantly wrong with him.”

Pillow was sitting at the station’s kitchen table, when he suddenly got a severe headache, started feeling nauseous and began vomiting. Pillow was rushed to the emergency room at Lynchburg General Hospital.

“Pretty quick after going through a CT scan, they had found some blood on his brain,” said Shealy. “Immediately, we knew the severity of the situation. And even Jeremy himself understood very, very quickly that he was in bad shape.”

Pillow underwent a procedure and is still recovering the hospital. Shealy says he’s awake and talking. Doctors are still doing tests to determine the cause of the bleeding and working to find the best course of treatment.

“We all want to have the magical, you know, doctor comes in, waves their magic wand, he feels better, goes home, comes back to work,” said Shealy. “Unfortunately, this is not one of those cases. This is going to be a long-term kind of thing.”

Not knowing what else to do, a coworker’s daughter created a GoFundMe with the goal of raising $10,000. By Friday evening, it had already raised more than $23,000.

“[The Pillows] are tremendously appreciative,” said Shealy. “It just makes me want cry to see what people are doing for him.”

Shealy says Pillow is only 46 years old and is the picture of health.

Pillow and his wife Erin have three daughters and a young son. He’s spent his career taking care of others, even working a second job as a paramedic at Lynchburg General Hospital.

“The number of people that he has taken care of and the number of lives that he has touched is immeasurable,” said Shealy.

Shealy says now, it’s time the community take care of Pillow.

“I love him. And that’s just how I can sum it up. He’s not a coworker. He’s not a friend. He’s my brother and I love him. And I don’t know how this is going to go,” said Shealy, in tears. “We’ll see.”

If you’d like to donate to Pillow’s GoFundMe, click here.


About the Author:

You can watch Lindsey during Virginia Today every weekend or as a reporter during the week!